AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH August 19, 2007

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

Identifying Answers,

Identifying People,

Case of Mistaken Identity

Sermon Notes

Who is my mother ?

Jesus was told that his family desired to see Him, but His work did not suffer this for the time, and He asked this: WHO IS MY MOTHER ? It is, said He, everyone who does the will of God (Matthew 12:48ff.). These too are His brothers. There are no queens in heaven, nor popes (Matthew 23:8-10): Christ ONLY is the Master and Teacher, and Mary is the mother of the human format of Christ, not 'of God', a contradiction in terms. The limit of lords, it is one; the origin of God, it is non-existent, for He is eternal, without whom nothing could be ever, and through whom all things come directly, such as creation, or indirectly, such as sin.

Who is my brother ?

His brothers are just the same characters! He did not come to earth as a man in order not to have brothers, but since He had no seed of His own (Isaiah 53), it is those regenerated by Him and for the Lord, who are His brothers. Do we so act ?

Who is my God ?

In the Adelaide Advertiser Monday, August 13, 2007 we had the story of an Anglican bishop, Spong by name,  who conceived that there is a mental dictation to others in the Sydney diocese of the C of E. For him, we find then as on August 17, there is a need to let people make up their own minds. You do not need the bodily resurrection, or the virgin birth, you need an updated Christ, fit for the 21st century, not one bound in the volume of His day.

First, this seems so very out of date. Thus when your pastor was preaching in the South Island of New Zealand in 1966, a contretemps broke out, which broke up the church in the end. It was in the Presbyterian field, where one abides (for example the Scots Confession of 1560 seems quite good, although every confession for a Bible believing Christian MUST be read as subordinate to the Bible, that is so that if there is any question, the Bible alone rules) and where indeed one was ordained in 1966, to the Ministry. A certain Professor Geering, principal of the theological tertiary training centre or 'theological hall' in N.Z. revealed to the press that he did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The dust of His body, he averred, lay somewhere in Palestine, or what adjoins.

This new religion (Acts 2:23ff., I Corinthians 15:1-4), with its new christ resembles this very case noted today, that against which Paul warned (II Cor. 11), a spiritual novelty factor arising from those whom Paul THEREFORE is defining as false apostles (II Cor. 11:4,13-15), this being the genre. It has used and does use Jesus Christ as a gum tree is used by mistletoe. One saw a detailed picture of a little mistletoe plant sticking on a gum tree branch, getting ready to insert its probe and so live on the gum as a parasite.  This is it.

However this is far worse, for in this case, it is not only parasitic, USING the foundation of the faith as a ground of departure for baseless comedy of errors in making things up, but an empty parade, using the name of Jesus Christ to make a religion founded on nothing. It has one only merit: it fulfils the prediction of Peter for the last days of our Age, providing the 'mature', the 'updated' version of the Christian faith, as in II Peter 2. People, he said, will arise in your own church and make merchandise of you, bringing in destructive heresies. Jude puts the kind more amply!

It has been done for centuries, in different ways as man dares to trifle with the Lord, with Christ the clown, the revolutionary, the non-supernatural, and anything else that reflects faithless culture, lacking all basis except vapid imagination and shameless disregard of historical constraints and faith alike.

Such was the species of cry in 1966 in NZ where also a new christ was being formed and in the end, though your pastor condemned it roundly in the Assembly of that year in Wellington, and refused at Assembly, to read its words from the pulpit in the St Ninian's Presbyterian Church in Blenheim where he preached, nevertheless the vast majority followed this thing, or were so indifferent to it that one could believe it or the Bible, at will! They would not hear, any more than they heard Jeremiah in his day, before the fall of Jerusalem. Such is the way of unbelief.

Hence in 1966 one's word of dissent, provided formally for Assembly records concerning the Resurrection Statement of that year,  was lodged with the privilege used, of sending as an Assembly member, the reasons for that dissent. In fact, this was a document of 17,000 words of denunciation, before one eventually left that former Christian church. Here too the word of the vagrant church academic concerned, was that the twentieth century man (the 21st doesn't seem to have changed him much) could not believe the supernatural and all that.

This seems very like the very wrong, Spong song, which as a type, is soon the swan song for a church, if it be followed, just as it has been set out before and is nothing original. It is Christ who is original, and THE ORGINAL, there being none like Him (cf. Psalm 89:5 with Psalms 45, and  102:16-20, Isaiah 61:1-3, 48:16, Hosea 13:14). SMR Appendix C and D speak of His impact, word and incomparable performance in history, as does Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Ch. 9, and dwell on His fulfilment in precision of contracted word (Matthew 26:53-54), deed, Gospel basis and work of power. History has been busy fulfilling His words ever since.

He was full of grace and truth as became the only begotten of the Father, the word who WAS God (there is only one God in the Bible, and it is of Him John 1:1 speaks, the others being mere creatures, as in Psalm 82, Ezekiel 29). In the latter God asks of these fakes, these would-be gods, Will you still say you are god when I slay you! It is He who took the virgin's womb as in Matthew 1:23, and why ? for how else could God become man but by bringing His own deity into our realm, direct engendering into the virgin's womb of the eternal Word, the the Lord of glory (I Cor. 2:8-1); and how avoid sin as a heritage but by allowing the Fatherhood of the everlasting God to act in incarnation of the sinless Saviour, and how save, had He had sin of His own! (I Peter 2:22-25)!

Thus there is the question: WHO IS CHRIST ? The biblical answer, the only one demonstrable by reason and clear in revelation, like the case of an aeroplane asking, Where is my aerodrome from which I came! as it gets lost and looks for it: it is this. It is the One, O believer, from whom you came (John 1:1-3), who became sin for you that you might become the righteousness of God in Him (II Corinthians 5:21). This is He who is NOT 'another Jesus' whose is not 'another Gospel' and from whom there is not sent, from the Father, 'another spirit', as Paul denounces in his definition of the deity of Jesus Christ in II Cor. 11. In God, nothing changes.

Another Jesus, so far from saving, is an invention of man.  If worshipped, he is an idol, and if not, a mere secularity, fashioned in clouds of desire, immune to history, useless to help. Idolaters, now, they do not enter the kingdom of heaven (I Corinthians 5-6), whether these be unrepentant adulterers in spirit or body. It is because eternal life is to KNOW GOD and JESUS CHRIST whom He has sent, that knowing the wrong christ, and thus the wrong God, since Christ is His definitive declaration (Hebrews 1) is not to be saved! Wrong doctor, wrong operation!

Worse: if the novelty-maker be a preacher, the opportunity misused leads not only to preaching what is lost. It works towards more loss, as such persons are neither entering into the kingdom of heaven,  nor suffering those who were entering to do so. This is precisely in the manner of the scribes of Jesus’ day (Luke 11:52).  In this, Jesus was condemning those who condemned Him, since they did not believe in Him, and hence were holding a view that MUST  (since they purportedly believed the Old Testament) have been centred in another Jesus! Condemn truth and it condemns you. In this case, the destruction of Jerusalem resulted: idols fall!

The One who was before them, as He has been before the Church for 2000 years, and more before it in prophecy, Him they murdered, as Peter roundly, fearlessly and needfully declared to their faces (Acts 3:14-15). These authorities too were greatly disturbed, because through Jesus the apostles preached the resurrection. As to that, it was the body that was the point: that's what they murdered, not His spirit (Matthew 26). That's what they buried (cf. I Cor. 15:1-4), that's the thing that was raised, as defined, so that Christ even challenged them to touch Him and SEE! for, said He, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me to have (Luke 24).

This is not a religion of philosophers but of observers (Acts 4:20, 5:32), scientific, testable, perceptible, just as organic evolution is not. There, there is the myth. Here is the fact.  On this all stands, and has stood and will stand till He comes, and again, then He is seen  once more directly for Himself, and then, then ? It is then that "all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him!" (Revelation 1:7).

So far, then, from the bishop's christ being an updated version, it is outdated.

Who crucifies Christ afresh ?

Biblically, then, this phrase is used in Hebrews 6 of those who have

1) tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the Age to come
and the heavenly gift 

2) were once enlightened and

3) have partaken of the Holy Spirit.

They tasted, but did not go further (cf. Mark 4:16-17 and see On Stand-By A and J).

This reminds one of King Saul, who menaced as a youth, the one to become King David of great name and fame. At the first, the Spirit came on him and he prophesied, but evidently to no avail. It is one thing to taste, as we all know and often see in wine-tasting exhibits on the TV, but it is quite another to swallow. EATING the heavenly 'bread' does not omit this point! (John 6).

The crucifixion that counts, it is that of Jesus Christ at Calvary, not of Christ on the altar of a renegade heart! Note, in passing, that this is not a thing of in and out of the Faith, but rather, of one who did not swallow, having gagged, then moving from the superficial attachment to the eternal exclusion (Hebrews 6:4ff.). Playing with fire helps no one (cf. Leviticus 10)!

The faith of a little child is no enemy of the mind (I Corinthians 14:20 - indeed ALL words in public worship must edify), for indeed there is no other faith or religion or approach that can stand logically (see http://webwitness.org.au).

Nevertheless, it  DOES REQUIRE total acceptance of this living and changeless Jesus Christ, the anointed, predicted, appointed Lord and Saviour, the Messiah from heaven (John 6:51): not some immersion of the body (for it is sprinkling which is noted in Hebrews 9:10ff. of various baptisms), but that of the spirit, when one is crucified with Christ, buried with Him, indeed planted with Him! (Romans 6) and thus remaining with Him. It is this eternal Christ who paid (Romans 8:32, John 8:58), and not another Jesus: it is He whom faith receives,  whom one follows, taking up one's cross DAILY! (Luke 9:23-24, 14:27ff.). It is He, and not another (John 10:5), who keeps what is committed to Him against that day (II Timothy 1:12).

Who is justified ?

In Luke 18:14, we see the tenor here likewise. The parable concerns a Pharisee, full of self-congratulation and works, and a tax-collector, facilitating the Roman occupation of Israel, and notoriously of a group who used some of their takings to further their own fortunes, so making a double calamity of their lives. The former thanked God he was not like other men, but purer, while the latter asked God to have mercy on him as a sinner. It was THIS ONE who was JUSTIFIED rather than the other, said Jesus, who also indicated that many harlots would enter the kingdom before some of the religionists (major clusters of whom, after all, killed Him!). Justification is by faith, not by works, not even some, not even ONE of them! (Romans 3:23ff.).

The saving works are Christ's! It is ONLY then that man's works can be wrought in the right spirit, as in love, not in the boundless foundation-less mist of futile fog. PLANT the tree, and THEN look for the fruit! (Matthew 15:13): and plant it in Christ, the right one, who died at Calvary, not some substitute creation who arose in the mind of new-christ-makers, fresh from the factories of hell (cf. Jude).

Who is a liar ?

I John 2:22 tells us that this is the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ! What is that ? It is as defined in I John 1, the One whose IS eternal life who became flesh and whom they could handle, real from heaven, eternity in temporal dress, who having in His gift eternal life, gave it to believers in Him. You cannot rise higher than your saviour! Have one of earth and earth is your store; but flesh and blood CANNOT enter the kingdom of heaven, "nor does corruption incorruption." It is the LORD from heaven who is the second man, whose work annuls for believers that of Adam in the fall (I Cor. 15:47). Choose another and you lose heaven.

HE is not a piece of bread, movable by man, nor does He grow mouldy, but rather moulds His own in our race! He is not in an inner room as with the Mass (Matthew 24:26) but WHEN HE appears, it is like lightning arising from the East and flashing to the West! You COULD not mistake the Lord of glory! HE is not manufactured in the mind of man, but man was manufactured by the power of His Spirit! (Genesis 1,John 15:26); for God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must do so in Spirit and in Truth - like Thomas, who worshipped Him as Lord and God (the God, literally) on seeing the demonstration that His body had in fact risen from the dead! (John 20). The lie defies and defiles; the truth liberates and loves.

Who is kept by the power of God ?

Now we come to the opposite, the apposite opposite. Those who are kept by the power of God, says I Peter 1, are those who by God's abundant mercy have been begotten again in a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In fact, as in Romans 10:9, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead (not some spiritual imagination, but the testable corpse), then you will be saved.

The Christ in whom you are to believe, then, is not some made up again as bread or mere man, but the One who came from heaven (John 6:51, Acts 3:19ff.) and returned there, there to remain till the final restoration of all things by His own power and in His own return and rule! His overpowering might is so contrary to the Wrong Song (cf. John 8:19) that the Lord will even dispense with the heavens and the earth, and this soiled old world will go! (II Peter 3, Matthew 24:35, John 5:19ff.) with its works, to be burnt up in much power and noise and heat! HIS words however will remain.

But to what are those who so believe KEPT ? It is, says Peter, to an inheritance (as in Ephesians 1:11, it is sure, as in I John 5:11-13, 14:3). It is to an inheritance

	1) incorruptible
	2) undefiled and
	3) that does not fade away; and further, it is
	4) reserved in heaven for all such (John 4:14),

those in whom the Lord is like a well of water springing up into eternal life! who know God and so go with God (John 12:26, 8:12, 17:24), who have received Him as He is and so believe; and while they may stray (as did Jonah!), yet in Him is their life and He is their Lord who pardons, reprocesses and reproves, yes and restores (as He did Peter, John 21).  

In Him is no shadow of turning, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:6), more reliable than the mountains, deeper than the sea, broader in grace than the winds and stars: the power, righteousness and wisdom of God.